


yashashvini

by toujours_nigel



Category: Ramayana - Valmiki
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 11:18:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18659386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toujours_nigel/pseuds/toujours_nigel
Summary: She has only ever been happy as a queen in Ayodhya.





	yashashvini

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/gifts).



“Queen Kaushalya’s son will be Crown Prince,” Manthara says when she dances in, exultant. “Not yours at all.”

“They are all my sons, they all love me to distraction. Why, to whom do they come with every little problem that plagues them, even now that they are grown? Who smooths the frowns from their faces?”

“Indeed you do, Princess,” Manthara temporises. “No doubt you shall be useful when he is crowned and you are a widow.”

“Queen. I am a queen. You will remember it and curb your tongue before it spreads such lies. Do my sons flock to me only because I am useful? Why then would Shanta run into my arms whenever we meet, though I can do nothing to better her life, though I was wed a handful of years before she was?”

“Poor Princess Shanta, first raised away from her mother and then given in marriage to an ascetic. Sit down, dearling, let me unbraid your hair. Such difficult lives all women have, and not even being royal saves them from it...”

Kaikeyi sits, lets Manthara take down her braids and rub hibiscus oil into her scalp. When she had first come to Ayodhya, everyone had worn their hair in the Magadha style, unornamented save for the _chudamani_ ; within a year they were braiding pearls into their hair in the Kekaya fashion: Kaikeyi had taught Sumitra’s maid and herself threaded pearls through Kaushalya’s lustrous hair, as neat-handed as any maid and much faster than any save Manthara. Manthara is a prize beyond pearls, who loses neither the flow of her work nor the flow of her words; Kaikeyi has long mastered the art of nodding and humming agreeably without paying heed to her: if it is truly important, Manthara will repeat herself a dozen times a day.

“Such partings in the lives of women; I see these young princesses dancing in the courtyards and my heart weeps for their mothers who sent them away so young. Do you remember how little Princess Shrutakirti wept and wept, poor thing, she wasn’t more than five and wanted her mother and nobody could console her. Then she forgot and was happy in her new home, just as you were in time after your mother left. Oh how you wept in the early days, dearling, it broke my heart in two, how your poor mother must have suffered.”

“Enough! My mother cared nothing for my father, nor he for her. How dare you compare my marriage to hers, when I hold my husband’s heart in my hand?”

Manthara blinks. “I was only speaking of the fate of womankind, my Princess, and how easily it turns on the whims of men. You are too young to remember this, but ask Prince Yudhajit when next he visits, how the King loved your mother, how she gloried in knowing all his secrets. She gave him eight children, and still he turned her out of doors, a woman alone and stripped of all her power.”

“That is no love,” Kaikeyi says, “not as I have known it. I have saved my husband’s life and he has granted me great boons. Will you still tell me I have no surety of happiness?”

“It is good that he has promised you such boons, Princess. Perhaps you can ask for a palace in northern Kosal to be granted to Prince Bharat while the King still lives. Queen Kaushalya is virtuous, she would never stop you from leaving once her son is crowned, and you would never have to...”

She leaves half the braids undone and moves still muttering towards the rosewood chest that houses Kaikeyi’s perfumes and unguents.

Kaikeyi laughs. “Are you dressing me for the King? He is in the temple today, offering to the Sun for a peaceful reign for Rama.”

Manthara halts her fussing and straightens guiltily. “Oh no, nothing like that, I knew the King wouldn’t visit you tonight, he’s busy with Queen Kaushalya. I’ve found a grey strand in your hair and I should have remembered, this is the age when your mother began to grey, but I have nothing on hand. I’ll ask Queen Kaushalya’s maid tomorrow, they are certain to have _mendhika_ in their stores, she’s a dozen years older than you and her hair’s like a raven’s wing. Why, Princess, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the King could grant you eternal youth as a boon? It’s a surer thing than sons or love, surer than anything but power.”

“Queen,” Kaikeyi shouted, and threw a delicately-jointed ivory _angad_ at the wall to watch it shatter. “I am your Queen, and you will remember it. I have been your Queen for twenty years, and I will **always** be your Queen.”


End file.
